Chicago. Farouk Abdel Wahab
was going through hard times because he was studying in a foreign country, that it was natural for him to be in financial straits, and that asking her father for help should not be held against him. She was surprised that her father accepted the request calmly, as if he had expected it, and began to send her a thousand dollars on the first of every month, which Danana then took from her without any compunction, even expressing impatience if it was late. Money in itself was not what worried Marwa. She was willing to contribute to the household expenses even more than that because it had been instilled in her while growing up that the model of a good wife was one who stood by her husband to the best of her ability and resources. By sheer coincidence, however, she found in Danana's pocket a bank transfer indicating that he was paid a large sum of money in addition to the amount of the stipend. At that point she could not control herself. She asked him as anger gathered on her face like clouds on an overcast day, “Why did you hide from me your extra salary? And why do you make us ask my father for help when we don't need it?”
Danana was taken aback for a little while, and then he regained his brazenness. “I didn't tell you about the extra salary because no occasion had arisen. Besides, as a wife you are not entitled, by religion, to know your husband's salary. I can provide proof of that from jurisprudence. As for the small sum that your father helps us with, I think it is quite natural because God has given him a lot of money whereas we are beginning our own life and we must save. Saving is a great virtue to which we are enjoined by the noblest of creation, the chosen one, prayers and peace be upon him.”
Marwa was naturally not convinced this time. His miserliness revealed itself as clearly as the sun on a hot cloudless day. She began to notice how his face grew ashen if he had to pay anything whatsoever, and he displayed utmost care, to the point of panic, when he counted his money and put it very slowly in his wallet, which he then interred in his inside pocket, as if it were its final resting place. Little by little she was beset by disquieting apprehensions; she was very far from her family, separated from them by the Atlantic Ocean and several thousand miles. She was lonely and a complete stranger in Chicago. No one knew her and no one cared about her. Her poor English made it impossible for her to communicate with people on the street. In this place away from home, she had no one but Danana. Could she really rely on him? What would happen if she were to fall ill or be injured in an accident? This person that she had married would not take care of her at all but would throw her into the street if she were going to cost him ten dollars. That was the truth. He was a selfish miser who thought only of himself. Perhaps now, better than at any other time, she understood why he had chosen to marry her. He had already begun to nibble at her wealth and undoubtedly had plans, after her father's death, to seize her inheritance; perhaps even now he was calculating precisely how much that would be.
The problem, however, was not confined to his miserliness and selfishness. There was another loathsome feeling that was weighing heavily on her and getting worse every day, a very private and embarrassing matter that Marwa could not confide even to those closest to her. She even blamed herself for merely thinking about it, and yet it was painful to her and caused her great discomfort. To put it bluntly, she hated the way her husband had intercourse with her. He would come at her in a strange manner, attacking her without any preliminaries. She would be sitting, watching television in the bedroom or coming out of the bathroom, when he would pounce on her, falling on her suddenly with his erection just as adolescents do with housemaids. His crude ways caused her panic and anxiety in addition to feelings of humiliation. It also led to painful lacerations in her body. One night she hinted to him what she was suffering, avoiding looking at his face for sheer shame. But he laughed sarcastically and said, somewhat boastfully, “Try and get used to that, because my nature is strong and violent. That's how all men are in our family. My maternal uncle in the village got married and had children after the age of eighty.”
She felt frustrated because he didn't understand her and she couldn't make this any clearer to him. She wished she could ask him to read the eloquent Qur'anic expression enjoining Muslim husbands to approach their wives gently and gradually so he would understand what she wanted to say but was too shy to say it. She was surprised later to find that he was using an ointment with a pungent smell and she rejected him, pushing him away from her and jumping out of bed, now doubly angry at him. She began to avoid being with him, using all kinds of pretexts, until he attacked her one night. She repelled him hard and jumped away. He shouted angrily, panting with desire and from the effort, “Fear God, Marwa. I'm warning you; God's punishment will be severe. What you are doing is forbidden in the canon law with the consensus of religious scholars. The Messenger of God, peace and prayer be upon him, has been quoted correctly saying that the woman who refuses her husband in bed shall spend the night cursed by the angels.”
He was stretched out on the bed in front of her as she stood in her nightclothes. She got very angry and fixed him with a hateful and contemptuous glance. She almost replied that Islam would never force a woman to be intimate with a man as disgusting as he was; that the Prophet, peace be upon him, ordered a woman to be divorced from her husband just because she wasn't pleased with him. Marwa became so incensed that, for the first time, she thought of divorce. Let him divorce her and let her go back to Egypt. A divorce is a much more merciful fate than being violated every night in this disgusting manner. “Divorce me, now.” She became so obsessed with the sentence that she saw it written in her mind. But for one reason or another (she tried to figure that out later but was never able to), as soon as she was about to reply, as soon as she opened her lips to utter the fateful sentence, mysterious and contradictory feelings came over her, forcing her to be silent. Then she found herself approaching him slowly, as if hypnotized, and began to take off her clothes, coldly and neutrally, one piece at a time, until she stood in front of him totally naked. When he attacked her she did not resist.
That night a new phase started between them. She started to yield her body to him with the utmost coldness; she would close her eyes and patiently suffer his heavy breaths and the disgusting stickiness of his body. The moments passed, heavy and painful, during which she fought off nausea until he was done and lay down on his back, panting and proud, as if he had won a military battle. She would then rush to the bathroom to throw up and cry from defeat, impotence, and pain. Afterward she felt aches all over her body, as if she had been given a sound beating. Her face changed after every such encounter, turning gloomy, flushed, and swollen.
Despite Marwa's defeat in the sex battle, she persisted in rejecting the idea of having children. He kept after her insistently to have a child in America. He tried to convince her by every means he could muster; he would say to her, “You silly girl.”
“Please don't speak to me like that.”
She would turn her face and he would get close to her, feigning affection, whispering in a hissing voice, “Listen to me, my love. If we have a child now, he would be a citizen and we will automatically get citizenship later on. People pay tens of thousands of dollars for an American passport and you are turning your back on this bounty?”
“Don't you get tired of saying that? I don't want to have a baby now and I cannot have one just to obtain an American passport.”
THAT NIGHT MARWA WAS RELAXING on the sofa in the living room, watching a soap opera on the Egyptian satellite channel, when she heard the doorbell ringing. Because she was not expecting anyone, she got up reluctantly, somewhat worried, remembering all the warnings she had often heard about opening the door to strangers in Chicago. She looked through the peephole and saw Safwat Shakir standing there, smiling. It didn't take him long to say loudly, “Is Dr. Danana home?”
“No, he is not.”
“Sorry, madam. I came from Washington especially to meet him. My telephone, unfortunately, is not working. Can I come in and wait for him?”
She didn't answer, so he went on persistently, “I want him for an important matter that cannot wait.”
She knew Safwat Shakir; she had seen him more than once at consulate receptions and had never trusted him. He always seemed to her to be arrogant and suspicious. But she knew that her husband respected him. She had no choice, so she opened the door and let him in. He was well dressed as usual and wore an expensive cologne. He shook her hand and sat in the nearest chair in the entryway She sat in front of him, leaving the apartment door open.